It's always really hard to choose what to share from Sew Me a Song, but I am loving these Kei text prints. I have a few of these in my stash, and they are absolutely gorgeous. They're a linen/cotton blend and would make the most gorgeous bags and cushions.

Tuesday, 27 January 2015

This probably feels like the QAL that went on and on (and on and on), but the time has come for our final linky party! Thanks so much to all of you who quilted along - I hope you found the video tutorials helpful, and have had lots of fun along the way :o)

Although most of you have been making a Giant Chevron quilt for this QAL, anyone who has used my free motion quilting tutorials to quilt something is welcome to link up. I'll be leaving the linky open for two weeks, so you have plenty of time to finish up your quilt and still have time to link up. I can't wait to see your quilts!

We have an amazing prize donated by Aurifil for the QAL - this beautiful box of 50wt thread. Aurifil is absolutely my thread of choice for piecing and quilting, so for those of you who haven't tried it it is a brilliant chance to try it out. Thanks so much to Alex (aka Mr Aurifil) for donating this prize :o)

Please link up a blog post, IG photo or Flickr photo here. It would be wonderful if you could check out some of the other finishes and leave some comment love, too!

Friday, 23 January 2015

I am so excited to finally be able to share this quilt with you - I made it midway through last year, and it's one of my all-time favorite finishes, so I've been very impatiently waiting for it to be published so I can share it! It appears in Quilters Companion No. 71, which came out yesterday.

Ever since making this quilt, I'd been wanting to make another quilt using the same block design, but using colours that are more 'me'. It's essentially made using the traditional Dutch Rose block (or Carpenters Star), but I've added an extra star in the centre, to give the block a bit more interest.

I don't think it's any great secret that I'm a massive fan of Tula Pink's designs, and this quilt is sort of an ode to Tula - all the print fabrics are from her collections (mostly from a fat eighth bundle of Fox Fields, but with a few pieces from Nightshade, The Birds and the Bees and Neptune thrown in) and I love how they work so beautifully together. It was such a fun quilt to put together, and I'm planning on making another (bigger version) using this pattern - I just need to decide what fabric to use :o)

I quilted it using Aurifil 50 wt in various colours - threads from Tula Pink's Aurifil collection for the coloured fabrics, and soft white (2021) in all the background. I quilted fairly large, loose designs on this quilt, so it is beautifully drapey but still has lots of texture. I wanted to accentuate the sense of the stars exploding outward with straight line quilting within the stars, and then contrast that with the curvy designs in the rest of the background. I really like this combination of quilting, and I'm finding I'm using it more and more on my quilts.

This quilt finishes at 64" square, so it's the perfect size for snuggling under on the couch (and despite it being summer here, there have been many snuggling opportunities in the last few months!)

The back is one of my favorite Tula prints, with some coordinating prints down each side to bring it up to size. I love the back almost as much as the front :o)

I am looking for testers for this pattern if anyone is interested - it will be available in two sizes (lap and queen), so if you'd like to test for me please let me know :o) I'll be teaching this block as a class at Frangipani Fabrics later this year, too.

Welcome to Friday Fabric Finds, a weekly post where I share the latest and greatest fabric and sales from my sponsors.

One of the collections I've been eagerly awaiting is Doe by Carolyn Friedlander, and it has started hitting shops over the last few weeks. One of the things that really appeals to me about Carolyn's designs is how useful they are, and the number of fantastic low volume prints she includes in her collections. Nearly every quilt I've made since Architextures came out has included at least one of her low volume prints - they really are my go-to neutrals. Doe is no different - the neutrals are so versatile and there are lots in this collection! I'm trying very hard to not buy fabric before I travel to QuiltCon in a few weeks, but it is getting increasingly hard to resist temptation!!

Sew Me a Song have the complete collection of Moonshine by Tula Pink available, either as a complete bundle or separate prints. I've just started an EPP project using these and Tula's Fox Fields collection and they play beautifully together.

Saturday, 17 January 2015

A belated happy new year to you all! I hope you and yours had a fabulous holiday/new year season. We mostly had pretty quiet celebrations with family and friends this year, and it was really lovely. We've just gotten home from a week staying at the beach and I'm feeling recharged and ready to jump back into sewing and blogging after almost a month off it all (a very long time for me!!) This is a very wordy post, so I've broken it up a bit with some of my favorite finishes from last year (the ones I can share at least!) It's taken me a couple of weeks to write this post - it's a bit of a soul searching post :o)

A new year always gets me reflecting on the year just gone, and thinking about my plans for the year ahead. I had a really fabulous year last year in terms of quilty stuff - being made a Bernina Textile Artist, starting to teach patchwork locally, getting my quilt on the cover of the Quilters Companion diary, and continuing to get quilts commissioned by magazines - but I did end up a bit burnt out by the end of the year. Hence why I've had an unplanned break from all things quilting. It's the first time ever since I started quilting that I have had zero interest in going down to my sewing room and making things. I think a lot of it stemmed from working almost constantly on commissions for magazines for the last half of the year, and genuinely needing a break. Which was all a bit heart breaking to be honest - at one point I was actually thinking about whether I wanted to quilt anymore. And I started wondering how I could have fallen out of love with something that gives me so much joy?

After a LOT of reflection, I've come to a realisation that it is actually really hard to try to make your hobby into a job, and still keep the passion there. If you have managed to do this I would LOVE to hear some advice on how to balance it all. I'm a long, long way off bringing in any decent income from quilting, but it is still a dream to get there one day. I guess I've just become a bit more aware that even though you're doing something you absolutely love, it's incredibly hard work to try and earn income in a creative industry. Although it is still something I want to try to do, I'm a bit scared I'll lose the joy I get from quilting in the process. Perhaps I'm a bit naive for only just thinking of it now, but the last few months of last year made me start wondering.

I don't tend to talk much in this space about my ambitions to turn quilting into a business, but it is there. I hope eventually that between patterns, teaching and (eventually) quilting for other people I'll be able to make this my job (as I talked about here). One of the things I'd like to focus on business-wise is pattern design, so when I have the opportunity to design something for a magazine it's hard to say no. Having said that, I think I need to get better at saying no sometimes. I made five commission quilts between July and December last year, as well as several mini quilts for swaps and my epic (in terms of hours) star quilt. All the commissions were quilts I really wanted to make (or I wouldn't have submitted them I guess), but I think working in secret to a deadline changes the whole quilting experience for me somehow.

Like many of you, the only time I have to quilt is at night after the kids go to bed, and I'm lucky enough to have one day a week to sew while the kids are at school/care (although that will change this year as my youngest starts school). So when I have deadlines to meet, I think feeling I have to quilt every single night (even if I would normally do it anyway) is part of the problem, and part of why I have needed a break recently. Working to deadlines normally isn't a problem for me (I actually thrive on deadlines and find it is the best way to get projects finished without starting a million other things along the way), but having lots of deadlines one after the other is a problem. I inevitably think up new projects along the way, and start to resent the fact that I can't start them until I've worked through my list of commitments.

So that was all a very roundabout way of getting to the point ;o) I like to have a word to live by each year (a kind of mantra I guess?), and this year it is Perspective. I'm hoping that by keeping this word at the back of my mind, I'll be a bit more sensible with my time, and find a better balance between sewing for business (ie designs for magazines etc) and sewing for me (ie working on whatever I feel inspired to work on). By keeping this in perspective and remembering that I'm doing this because I love it and want to do it, I'm hoping I'll avoid burning myself out like I did last year. And I guess I need to get better at saying no.

I would love to hear about your experiences with this - do you share my dream of making for a living? Or have you successfully turned your hobby into a business? I would appreciate any and all advice from those of you who have managed to build your hobby into a business and manage to keep the joy there.

Friday, 16 January 2015

So things have been a wee bit quiet around here for the last month or so. We are in the midst of school holidays, and I haven't actually touched my sewing machine for almost a month (I know, right?). I think I burnt myself out slightly at the end of last year (more on that in another post), but I'm finally feeling like getting back into things, so you'll probably be hearing from me a little more regularly again :o)

I'm returning to the interwebs today to share the latest and greatest fabrics from my sponsors. There have been a few highly anticipated collections that have hit shops this week, so there is some serious eye candy to share.

Sew Me a Song have a giant bundle of Suzuko Koseki fabric on offer - 59 fat eighths to be precise. I know I've mentioned before what a huge fan I am of Suzuko's fabric (the base cloth is seriously divine, and her design aesthetic is just amazing), and this is a brilliant way to get a LOT of different prints in one glorious bundle.

Last of all, I owe you a very overdue winner of the Polka Dot Tea Cotton Couture giveaway from late last year. Thanks so much to all of you who entered - the lucky winner is comment number #71, who is Ali! Congrats Ali, I'll send you an email soon.